A Statement in Combinatorics that is Independent of ZFC (an exposition)

preprint2012arXivOpen access

Abstract

It is known that, for any finite coloring of the naturals, there exists distinct naturals e1,e2,e3,e4e_1,e_2,e_3,e_4 that are the same color such that e1+e2=e3+e4e_1+e_2=e_3+e_4. Consider the following statement which we denote S: For every ℵ0\aleph_0-coloring of the reals there exists distinct reals e1,e2,e3,e4e_1,e_2,e_3,e_4 such that e1+e2=e3+e4e_1+e_2=e_3+e_4?} Is it true? Erdos showed that S is equivalent to the negation of the Continuum Hypothesis, and hence S is indepedent of ZFC. We give an exposition of his proof and some modern observations about results of this sort.

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